Royal Opera House ballet and opera cancelled for Omicron variant
Due to ‘resource challenges’ caused by the COVID-19 Omicron variant, some performances and tours at The Royal Opera House have been cancelled.
Nabucco opens with The Royal Opera tonight, but the next two planned performances (23 December and 28 December have been cancelled).
All performances of Nutcracker are cancelled until 5 January 2022.
Wednesday’s opening night of Tosca (22 December) and subsequent performances are currently confirmed.
High rates of isolation due to Covid among singers, dancers, musicians, and theatre staff have led to the cancellations, even though there are currently no government restrictions for attending theatres. Also in London, the National Theatre has cancelled performances until next year, half of London’s West End theatres had to cancel last weekend due to Covid outbreaks, and productions including The Book of Mormon, Dear Evan Hansen, and Come From Away are suspended until, at least, 27 December.
Graham Spicer, aka ‘Gramilano’, is a writer, director and photographer based in Milan. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy. His articles have appeared in various publications from Woman’s Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the Danza in Italia column for Dancing Times magazine. Graham was the historical advisor on Codice Carla, the 2023 documentary on Carla Fracci.
Graham also works as a dance photographer, and his photos have appeared in many books, theatre programmes, and magazines, including Dancing Times, Dance Spirit and Ballet2000, as well as all the major Italian newspapers.
He is a member of the Dance Section of The Critics’ Circle.
Such sad news for the dancers – and of course the singers and others employed in the building. Not to mention us, the punters!
This season has been so bad, though. One reviewer called the latest “Tosca”, “Puccini in a puppet show”. Seems like their productions have become sitcoms.